Hundreds of area boaters formed a frothy flotilla that escorted the reproduction 17th century square-rigger to sea Sunday.

By Rich Harbert

Fifty years have passed since David Thorpe sailed Mayflower II across the Atlantic, but the English mariner still knows a good ship when he sails one.

Onboard Mayflower II for the ship’s 50th anniversary sail Sunday, Thorpe couldn’t help but marvel again at the ship’s smooth ride and handling. “We didn’t go far this time, but this ship still maneuvers about as she did. She has a lovely lift to the swells,” Thorpe said.

Thorpe and six other surviving members of the crew that brought Mayflower II to Plymouth in 1957 were guests of honor as Plimoth Plantation celebrated the ship’s golden anniversary with a short sail around Cape Cod Bay Sunday afternoon.

Hundreds of area boaters formed a frothy flotilla that escorted the reproduction 17th century square-rigger to sea. Thousands more spectators lined the waterfront to see the ship off and welcome it back to its familiar berth at State Pier.

The three-hour tour offered a trip down memory lane for visitors old enough to remember the hoopla accompanying the June 13, 1957 arrival of the ship that has helped define Plymouth Harbor. Thorpe and a crew of 32 others spent 55 days sailing the 180-ton ship from England to the United States that spring. They arrived to a hero’s welcome that some say went unequaled until Sunday.

A parade of local ships, including chartered party boats carrying hundreds, accompanied Mayflower II as the tug Jaguar towed it through the channel and two miles out to sea. With the flotilla blasting horns and ringing bells in anticipation, the ship dropped its tow and set its sails, riding a northeast wind through a port tack as the ship’s tender, the shallop, sailed alongside.

Ben Brewster, who has been a member of the crew every time the ship has sailed since 1990, served as mizzen captain, in charge of the crew that controlled the main topsail and triangular mizzen sail Sunday.

“Sailing Mayflower II is more fun than a human being should be allowed. It is something special to sail that boat. When you set the sails it’s almost mystical,” Brewster said.

Edward Delano Sullivan, governor general of the General Society of Mayflower Descendants, watched the ship under sail from the deck of one of two Capt. John party boats chartered for the occasion. “I’m impressed with how stable she is,” Sullivan said. “We were bouncing around pretty good and that thing wasn’t moving. She looks awkward, but to see it in water is a different story.”

The Mayflower II story started in the early 1950s when Warwick Charlton, an English solider who fought with the Americans in North Africa, decided to commemorate the wartime cooperation between the two countries with the gift of a full-scale model of the ship that brought the Pilgrims to America.

Plimoth Plantation was looking to build a replica of its own and offered up plans drafted by a naval architect for a Mayflower-like ship.

The replica ship left England on April 20, 1957, following a more southerly route than the original ship. Like the original Mayflower, the replica had no motor and made the journey on wind power alone. The ship was becalmed for days along the way and then tested in a violent storm off Bermuda. The ship arrived in Plymouth after 55 days at sea on June 13, 1957.

Sitting with friends on the waterfront Sunday, Ellen Lane remembered getting what would now qualify as a sneak preview.

While working in South Duxbury as a babysitter, Lane and some friends heard the Mayflower II was anchored off the Gurnet the night before the ship’s slated arrival and they got in a boat to go welcome the crew. After learning the shop was actually spending the night in Provincetown, Lane and her friends decided to make a moonlight trip across the bay.

They arrived just in time to see the crew returning to Mayflower II from their first night of shore leave in nearly two months. “They looked like very, very happy sailors,” Lane said.

Lane and her friends got to watch as the ship set sail from Provincetown in the moonlight early in the morning of June 13. “I can still see them unfurling those sails. It was one of those rare moments you have in life,” Lane said.

Carole Curtin, who graduated from Plymouth High the day the ship arrived, best remembers the crowds and how they shunned the bleacher seats erected by the town on Coles Hill. Most spectators preferred to watch the ship’s arrival from the shoreline, rather than pay the $3 cost of a bleacher seat. “It was difficult to get down your own street. Any street on the waterfront, you had to prove you belonged there,” Curtin, a former Nelson Street resident, recalled Sunday.

Nearby, JoAnn Randall reflected on the show that greeted the sailors 50 years ago.
Randall’s sister, Virginia, played the Hammond organ for a pageant called “A New Tomorrow.” The music was specially written for the ship’s arrival and Randall retains a hand-written copy. “I remember looking up to see Vice President (Richard) Nixon. That was the doin’s,” Randall said.

Jean and Marie Blessington watched from their new home on Manters Point. The sisters moved to town that day with the help of Mayflower Van Lines and remember seeing a helicopter hovering over the ship as it arrived in the harbor.

Terry Dickie has sent thousands of tourists to see the ship in her job with Destination Plymouth but never really saw Mayflower II in all its glory until Sunday. “To suddenly see it in full sail is so exciting. It’s perfect,” Dickie said.

Sailing conditions Sunday were almost too perfect.

Coast Guard regulations prohibit ships like Mayflower II from setting sails in winds above 16 knots and from even leaving shore in winds above 20 knots. The day started with winds of 14 knots, but diminished enough by late afternoon that the 26-member crew could set all six sails.

Fully rigged, the ship slipped smoothly through the water at 5 to 6 knots, about the same pace the 1957 crew kept in for most of their trip from England. Rounding the point off Long Beach, with its masts only visible above the sand dunes, the ship must have appeared as the original Mayflower did when it anchored outside the harbor in 1620.
Seven of the eight surviving crew members, Michael Ford, Joseph Meany, Joseph Powell, Adrian Small, David Thorpe, John Winslow and Peter Padfield, traveled to Plymouth for the anniversary sail. Fred Edwards could not make the trip from Scotland due to illness.

All but Meaney, the American cabin boy on the 1957 trip, traveled from overseas.
As the ship entered the harbor Sunday, Meany reprised a role he played in 1957. As the ship sailed up the back of Cape Cod 50 years ago, Capt. Alan Villiers gave Meany permission to raise the then-48-star American flag.

Meany raised a 50-star flag as the ship turned down the channel Sunday. He doubted anyone noticed the difference.
Passengers and crew also paused while in the bay for “The Watch Below,” a memorial wreath-laying ceremony led by the Rev. Peter Gomes that honored the 25 original crewmen who have died. Peter Arenstam, captain of the ship for the Plantation, read the John Masefield poem, “Sea-Fever.”
Harold Boyer, who lead the original crew in parade through downtown streets with his drum in 1957, sat beside the gangplank Sunday, tapping out a drumbeat as the passengers and crew disembarked. Boyer is now 99.
A delegation of dignitaries awaited the crew’s arrival under a tent at state pier. There, state Senate President Therese Murray welcomed the original crew back to Massachusetts and helped unveil a plaque that will remember the names of all the crewmen who delivered Mayflower II to Plymouth.
Peter Balboni, owner of Pioppi’s Liquors, supplied champagne for a toast to the crew. Balboni’s grandfather, Tony Pioppi, supplied champagne to christen the shallop 50 years ago.
John Winslow, an original crewman who descends from Mayflower passenger Edward Winslow, offered thanks on behalf of the queen. “Pioppi’s saved her majesty a fortune in rum,” Winslow said.